BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Adjusted for inflation, household income has been relatively flat since the mid-1990s, but the inflation rate of employer-sponsored health insurance has been greater than both household income growth and general inflation for 50 years. We estimated the effect on average family income if health insurance inflation matched the general inflation rate since 1996, and those...

Inclusion of nontraded goods prices has been shown to be partly responsible for slow convergence in price indices across major cities in the United States (Cecchetti et al 2002). Drawing upon insights provided by well known theories, this paper uses panel econometric methods to seek evidence in U.S. city level Consumer Price Index (CPI) data of a systematic long-run relationship between prices ...

Since 1993, the conduct of monetary policy in Australia has been based on an inflation target. Under this framework, the aim of policy is for underlying inflation to average 2 to 3 per cent per annum in the medium term. Underlying inflation can be measured in a number of ways but each of these measures shows that the target has been achieved so far in the 1990s (see Table 1). The concept of und...

We formalize the notion that GATT exceptions such as antidumping and escape clause actions can act as insurance for import competing sectors affected by adverse price shocks. We use a general equilibrium model with several import competing sectors and assume incomplete markets so that agents cannot contract insurance. We show that these measures are superior to uniform tariffs as insurance mech...

We show that the effects of tariff changes on welfare and import volume are fully characterised by their effects on the generalised mean and variance of the tariff distribution, implying two "cones of liberalisation" in commodity price space. Because welfare is negatively but import volume positively related to the generalised variance, the cones do not intersect, which poses a policy dilemma. ...

raisin is one of the most important agricultural products in iran. iran after the turkey and america countries is the third largest exporter of raisin in world. using the indices of export advantage, import advantage, concentration ratios and the herfindahl-hirschman, have been analyzed to check the state trade and market structure of export and import of raisin product in the world during 2001...